Guild Wars 2

Edit- Thanks I understand in regards to my original post but I’ve responded with additional queries in regards to players being able to list items so close to vendor price that they are losing money. Check below in regards to that response.

So today I’m like.. OH yea I’m gonna go pick up some copper ore on the TP! I get to the Copper Ore page and I see some utter silliness.
The lowest seller is selling over 200k copper ore.

If I were to assume they bought all that ore for 1c each then they spent ‘only’ 20g for all that. But that would be vendor price. This person could have hundreds of people (friends or guildies) mailing them money or ore to sell. However, from what I can tell this person remains the lowest seller.

My question is: How is this being allowed? Are you now seeing the cumulative flaws of the trade post, while subtle, are becoming a glare in the eye of the buyer?

As someone who would like to turn to the Trade Post for buying occasionally or daily, I am seeing some scary changes happening rather quickly in the GW2 economy. I don’t feel we are making enough money off the content to meet many of the prices thus far. There are things like Cultural Armor that I know will take a long time to save up for.
(Edit- I’d like to note that for the most part in the first GW only high ticket items like Ectos – Black Dye – and the like, changed value frequently. After all was said and done (expansion wise) things like Wood and cloth rarely saw price spikes. I am assuming (which could possibly be wrong of me) that Copper/Wood in GW2 would be on par with Wood/Iron in GW.)

I was really hoping that the Trade Post would stay balanced, have it’s limitations and provide a fair place to trade. To be completely honest as the days pass I would rather trade with friends instead or not sell at all. I find myself missing the Material Traders from GW.

http://imageshack.us/a/img163/5605/gw2tpwtf296koreononesel.png

Is this something that the dev’s expect to balance itself or run it’s course and get better?

Looking at the Copper ore buyer tab and I think it’s pretty hilarious as well. Some buying over 100k copper ore at 12-17c. How did they even make that 100-200g+ listing?

I would just like to say that the 200k+ copper selling for 21c in your screenshot is NOT from one seller it is the total amount of copper ore being sold for 21 across every seller on every server.

I find it ridiculous then that right now there are 2 sellers selling Chipped Ruby across the entire world for ~1s50c. It’s a mat used in crafting and can be socketed into weapons. Why is there 0 interest in it?

because you don’t need to slot low tier ruby into your gear to make you perform significantly better…and you’ll probably out-level your item in an hour? I haven’t slotted anything into anything…only started doing this on my lv80 gear.

It was a rhetorical question. Why was the game designed around so many useless items? Right now, the only things that are worth something on the TP are crafting components of all levels. It’s FUN because you get as much as you can while levelling and it’s isn’t quite enough to get you to the next tier, so you have to buy some off TP.

The only people buying wood / ore / gems are either trying to sell them for higher prices or simply can’t be asked to gather themselves. Hell, it’s clearly less time consuming and buying simply doesn’t cost you much at all. Wood and ore are basically free at the TP. Their new mystic forge recipe added about 3 copper to the price of each (from 4c we went to 7c, no big difference).

Cloth is in a good place because many prefer to sell items to vendor for straight money (and convenience) instead of salvaging. It’s drop rate is also much smaller which helps a lot. Cloth is where all prime materials for crafting should be: you will have ALMOST enough to craft your next tier of items, while still having to buy a few off the TP. People that are luckier with drops get to sell them when they stop needing them.

Other than that you practically don’t need anything if you gather yourself. And why wouldn’t you gather? I never had to buy ores / gems / cloth. I never had to buy runes or sigils. I just feel very disconnected from the TP. If I try to sell things that I don’t personally need, I’d get 1 copper for them. It’s just not worth the effort of taking them out of the bank and putting them on the TP.

There is 0 interest in items because everyone can gather anything. And basically, even for jewelers, if they have enough ore through gathering they have more gems than they need. Always. I think the drop rates should be lowered to give them SOME value. 1 gem / item is the way to go, but gems are WAY too common and nobody ever needs to buy them!

If there are only 2 for sale, then the item is under immense demand. Depending on where you are looking at that (the sale tab?) then you are only seeing the number being sold and number of sellers at the lowest sale and highest buy prices. If you look at the buy tab, you can see all values of sellers and buyers.
The are many items in demand, especially crafting mats. The items you find unworthy and look to sell to others, they find unworthy too so why should they buy your trash?
From your comments on buying, I guess you have never actually tried to buy a ruby of any kind.
PS: This is GW2, not Diablo, there are no chipped rubies.

TP is for people to sell items that are in demand. Everygame have trash loot to fill your bag space. The items you’re talking about will have a value if leveling weren’t so easy…then again…making it hard a different group of ppl gets upset.

I would like to see a nerf on drop rate though…but it will probably makes making money harder for a lot of people as they can no longer vendor drops.

Silvermink, wat. There are 9 buy orders made by 1 person for that specific item. That doesn’t qualify for “huge demand”. Which items do you FEEL (because you can’t THINK that) are in high demand? The <10c prime materials?

From your comment on buying I would say you never leveled Jeweler. I’m currently sitting pretty at 400 Jeweler and never felt the need to buy any gems, rubies included.

PS: xDDDD so funny. I was talking about Ruby Shard.

@Wazabi. Trash loot is grey and is meant to be sold by vendors. Since when are crafting materials designed to be vendor trash? It’s always good to craft armor / weapon / jewel sets appropiate for your level. It even levels you up. Most people do it, but don’t need the TP to keep doing it, unless they need totems / scales / blood / etc.

BTW, right now I’m leveling Armorsmith + Weaponsmith on my Guardian, which SUPPOSEDLY should give me grief because they both use the same prime materials. And yet I’m still overstocked with items I gather.

The items in demand (besides rubies) are things like blood, scales, etc. I have a 387 jeweler as well as 400 leatherworker/huntsman. Copper and jute also have demand. I judge demand both upon number of buy orders as well as number of items for sale. With a global trader, an item with only 2 for sale (your comment) is a very high demand item. People might not be willing to pay super high prices for it, but demand is keeping up with supply. The fact that Iron and other materials are at 10-20c, and not 3c (vendor price) means they also have moderate demand and (from experience buying and selling them) huge turnover.

One thing that I really find odd about the trader is people are willing to list items 1c above a buy order or buy order an item 1c below it’s sale price. Items like Iron where you selling stacks of 250, this is slightly profitable, but low volume items I’ve seen it on too.

@ y u mad
Anything that mo one wants to pay much to buy is trash. You either make peace with it or can argue about the technicalities all day. In any game, there are trash. I don’t see how having trash and not having trash significantly changes my play.

Buy order and sell order alone doesn’t tell you the demand of an item. I suggest brushing up your knowledge on how supply and demand works before arguing it here.

John Smith.4610:

Jakeshipton.6520:

I would just like to say that the 200k+ copper selling for 21c in your screenshot is NOT from one seller it is the total amount of copper ore being sold for 21 across every seller on every server.

The buys and sells are aggregated, it isn’t individual players you are correct, but it isn’t the server it’s the whole world.

Thanks for clearing that up. I find the Trade Post UI is a much too deceptive in it’s initial appearances. Would be a lot better to know that on that line is everyone selling for that amount. I guess it was silly of me to not consider that _

On the other hand I do feel that the Sales Tax needs to be put in a visible place and that there should be a default minimum at all times, eve if that means players can no longer undercut each other at some point.

For example, I have a Penetrating Krytan Warhorn of Accuracy in my inventory worth 56c. Lowest seller is selling for 57c and the highest buyer is buying for 19c! There are no words to express how this shouldn’t be allowed. If the Trade Post really is an integral part of the economy, why isn’t this fixed yet? I am unsure what kind of programming would be required here, if it’s just a matter of making the TP see the vendor price and allowing/disallowing the sale/buy of an item when the total profit would equal less than vendor with the sale tax and listing fee. Or if the TP has to reference an entire list of items from the entire game and that has yet to happen.

While in today’s market the price of something relies on the manpower/pay it took plus some kind of generate revenue from the end product. Real life items don’t have a default vendor price. Corn doesn’t come with 2c stamped into it.

Where I’m going with this is that it’s quite clear that an item that vendors for 56c listed for 65c still has a 3c listing fee – in the end the seller would be practically breaking even. Breaking even is one thing, but the item listed at 57c still has a 3c listing fee which puts the sale UNDER vendor worth.

If there’s an invisible sale tax why not add invisible minimums. Obviously the system hasn’t deterred anyone from selling every freaking item on the trade post that they pick up so the least that can be done is to make the seller list for a price that gives at least 1c profit and make the buyer also have to ask a price that provides at least 1c profit. While it’s all just pennies, losing pennies adds up, especially when one uses the Trade Post fairly often – or wants to.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

It was a rhetorical question. Why was the game designed around so many useless items? Right now, the only things that are worth something on the TP are crafting components of all levels. It’s FUN because you get as much as you can while levelling and it’s isn’t quite enough to get you to the next tier, so you have to buy some off TP.

Your post made my pupils dilate.

The game wasn’t designed around so many useless items. So many useless items are a consequence of nothing more than the fact that you are in the beginning stages of an MMO where there will be a tremendous abundance of supply for lower & mid-tier items so their value is going to be effectively be “trash” for quite some time.

There are other things of value on the TP but it sounds like you are saying the only thing useful on the TP to you is crafting mats.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

The only people buying wood / ore / gems are either trying to sell them for higher prices or simply can’t be asked to gather themselves.

Your assumption is flawed.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Hell, it’s clearly less time consuming and buying simply doesn’t cost you much at all. Wood and ore are basically free at the TP. Their new mystic forge recipe added about 3 copper to the price of each (from 4c we went to 7c, no big difference).

What? o.o

Buying costs you what it costs you. This is going to depend on who is getting what so your blanket statement is misleading. Wood and ore are NOT basically free. Basically free means free because free is binary – it either is or isn’t. And since there is a cost, they are not free. Their new recipe immediately added 10c to the price of butter and it settled down to, what, 8c? 9c? If anyone got in on that deal ahead of time with enough volume they made BANK.

Maybe to one person this doesn’t matter but we’re talking about a system, not an individual’s perception of it – these movements are absolutely huge and that was the entire point. It caused the economy to burn through over 2 MILLION SOFT WOOD LOGS in less than 2 hours. That’s not a big deal?!

Cloth is in a good place because many prefer to sell items to vendor for straight money (and convenience) instead of salvaging.

What? I don’t understand.

It’s drop rate is also much smaller which helps a lot. Cloth is where all prime materials for crafting should be: you will have ALMOST enough to craft your next tier of items, while still having to buy a few off the TP. People that are luckier with drops get to sell them when they stop needing them.

What? How do you know the math on drop rates?

Other than that you practically don’t need anything if you gather yourself. And why wouldn’t you gather?

Because you know that you can make 5x as much farming something else, buying your mats on the TP and pocketing the difference?

I never had to buy ores / gems / cloth. I never had to buy runes or sigils. I just feel very disconnected from the TP. If I try to sell things that I don’t personally need, I’d get 1 copper for them. It’s just not worth the effort of taking them out of the bank and putting them on the TP.

And that suits your gameplay. Other people are in a rush and cannot afford to wait to gather the mats themselves.

With regards to it not being worth the effort – then find something that is worth the effort. FYI, nothing sells for 1c on the TP. Nada.

There is 0 interest in items because everyone can gather anything.

No wonder you are disconnected from the TP – you don’t understand the economics of this game! There is > 0 interest in items for anyone who doesn’t wish to gather resources.

And basically, even for jewelers, if they have enough ore through gathering they have more gems than they need. Always. I think the drop rates should be lowered to give them SOME value. 1 gem / item is the way to go, but gems are WAY too common and nobody ever needs to buy them!

A jeweler will always be able to craft more gems than they need, yes. Tweaking drop rates isn’t going to solve this problem because the problem is a result of people leveling their craft and there being too much supply versus demand. Nothing needs to be changed except your patience and understanding.

SookmiNahw.8461:

Thanks for clearing that up. I find the Trade Post UI is a much too deceptive in it’s initial appearances. Would be a lot better to know that on that line is everyone selling for that amount. I guess it was silly of me to not consider that _

Indeed it was.

On the other hand I do feel that the Sales Tax needs to be put in a visible place and that there should be a default minimum at all times, eve if that means players can no longer undercut each other at some point.

I agree about the sales tax. However, setting a default minimum defeats the purpose of having a (somewhat) free market system. The “floor” was set by having vendor prices, which in turn values a whole host of goods across the system. Players will always undercut each other to be first in line to sell and since they designed the TP to be FIFO [first in, first out – first person in line to sell has their good sold first, second person in line… etc…] this is not going to change because they are NOT going to redesign the system if it isn’t broken.

What is your beef with people undercutting each other? Eventually prices find an equilibrium as they are wont to do.

For example, I have a Penetrating Krytan Warhorn of Accuracy in my inventory worth 56c. Lowest seller is selling for 57c and the highest buyer is buying for 19c! There are no words to express how this shouldn’t be allowed.

So vendor it.

And there are words… words such as quality assurance, it slipped by us, process needs to be improved. Bug.

If the Trade Post really is an integral part of the economy, why isn’t this fixed yet? I am unsure what kind of programming would be required here, if it’s just a matter of making the TP see the vendor price and allowing/disallowing the sale/buy of an item when the total profit would equal less than vendor with the sale tax and listing fee. Or if the TP has to reference an entire list of items from the entire game and that has yet to happen.

We’ll never know but the answer to this question is complex beyond words. All we need to know is it’s a bug and they are fixing it.

While in today’s market the price of something relies on the manpower/pay it took plus some kind of generate revenue from the end product. Real life items don’t have a default vendor price. Corn doesn’t come with 2c stamped into it.

Real life items do indeed have a price floor:

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/price-floors-leave-new-yorkers-stuck-apartments-article-1.1047319

Where I’m going with this is that it’s quite clear that an item that vendors for 56c listed for 65c still has a 3c listing fee – in the end the seller would be practically breaking even. Breaking even is one thing, but the item listed at 57c still has a 3c listing fee which puts the sale UNDER vendor worth.

Which causes some currency destruction if it isn’t changed but that is a person’s choice to sell at a loss and it should be allowed. I wouldn’t put it past ANet to have let this go by on purpose because it has a useful benefit to them – combating inflation.

If there’s an invisible sale tax why not add invisible minimums.

It’s only invisible on the TP. I’m fairly certain they are adding this feature. Anyone with software background can tell the TP was poorly designed [someone else coded the module behind it but the TP is an atrocity of a web front-end and it shows].

Obviously the system hasn’t deterred anyone from selling every freaking item on the trade post that they pick up so the least that can be done is to make the seller list for a price that gives at least 1c profit and make the buyer also have to ask a price that provides at least 1c profit. While it’s all just pennies, losing pennies adds up, especially when one uses the Trade Post fairly often – or wants to.

Why must they dictate the price we sell at save to keep the price floor the same across the board? There is no reason to force people to sell or buy at a profit. If you don’t want to lose pennies then vendor it. Other people want to sell stuff at a loss for the convenience so let them. I don’t understand why this matters to you.

Wow, so many technicalities in your post. You are trying so, so very hard to defend a flawed economy.

Understand that most players don’t give a kitten about paying 10c for each piece of wood. That is NOTHING. Selling 1 green to a vendor gets you at least 7 items that cost 10c.

Asking me if I know the math on drop rates… do you even think before you post? Jesus Christ, of course players find less cloth than ore / wood while playing, because they can’t mine it AND they have to salvage items for it (armors and misc items), AND many players prefer to sell the armors to the vendors for convenience (and sometimes more money). SO HARD to understand. Try harder.

Of course there’s faster ways to make bank, especially at higher levels. But to someone leveling their crafts while leveling up as well, there is no reason not to gather. And even if they are lazy as kitten, they can still buy EVERYTHING they need from the TP using only vendored items because hey – everything is still cheap as hell. The only thing that sets you back while leveling a craft is crafting components, which players get anyway even if they don’t gather.

Telling me I need to find better items to sell, LOL. Why? Why bother when I can afford everything I want to level my crafts? There is NOTHING on the AH that interests me, I’m already throwing all my money on Dyes because I don’t give a crap about anything else. I get my armors, weapons, boxes. runes and sigils from my crafting, my friends cook for me because they make so much they don’t give a kitten and even if I lacked jeweling, the 5s fee most people ask for (included myself) wouldn’t mean jack squat if I had to craft them someplace else.

The TP is filled with items that people buy for 1c over the vendor price. The sellers are selling them at 3c over the vendor price. It’s a feature of a working economy, isn’t it?

And to your last point, no one cares how many upgraded gems a jeweler makes. They make just as many as they need to craft jewels / socket. The problem is GEMS dropping for nodes in HUGE amounts that even now fill my collectibles tab and are worth 2c more than the vendor price at TP. I’ve got 30+ of extra gems for every level range after being done with crafting in that range. Yeah, I’ll go buy some off the TP now. Working as intended amirite?

If a situation in which the TP is filled with junk prime materials that anyone can afford and which completely ruins the reason for gathering materials seems normal to you, you’re wrong. I’m just gathering for the daily achievement and the lulz experience points now.

Thank you John. I was trying to articulate that his post was not being constructive. I welcome people TO post but I’ve had enough of this critical MMO culture.

I’m glad he is passionate about it as well.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Wow, so many technicalities in your post. You are trying so, so very hard to defend a flawed economy.

I’m trying hard to understand what your issue is because it isn’t clear, concise or seemingly relevant. The forums are awash with people whining so I’m taking it upon myself to rationalize the community.

Understand that most players don’t give a kitten about paying 10c for each piece of wood. That is NOTHING. Selling 1 green to a vendor gets you at least 7 items that cost 10c.

… k…

Asking me if I know the math on drop rates… do you even think before you post? Jesus Christ, of course players find less cloth than ore / wood while playing, because they can’t mine it AND they have to salvage items for it (armors and misc items), AND many players prefer to sell the armors to the vendors for convenience (and sometimes more money). SO HARD to understand. Try harder.

There is no math in this, only opinions.
Here are some facts, though:

True, they cannot mine cloth. However, they can find it in light bags. See your low level centaurs for details. Next.
They [DO NOT HAVE] to salvage items. Ok.
Many players prefer to sell for convenience. Ok, an opinion but this counters your argument that people are using the TP to sell stuff at a loss [which some people do for a convenience]. Please square these two because it doesn’t add up.

You still have not shown the math on drop rates. My point is that you cannot, this is all wild speculation to suit your argument [which I still do not understand. I hope I do at some point.].

Of course there’s faster ways to make bank, especially at higher levels. But to someone leveling their crafts while leveling up as well, there is no reason not to gather. And even if they are lazy as kitten, they can still buy EVERYTHING they need from the TP using only vendored items because hey – everything is still cheap as hell. The only thing that sets you back while leveling a craft is crafting components, which players get anyway even if they don’t gather.

I agree. People do have an incentive to gather, but only if that incentive isn’t stopping them from doing something else. To anyone leveling their craft as they level up – it’s going to cost you more in the long-run but do what you want, it’s your playing time! Someone arguing over pennies earned and lost clearly isn’t taking this into account.

Telling me I need to find better items to sell, LOL. Why?

Because you stated you can only sell them for 1c and that is clearly an incorrect statement.

Why bother when I can afford everything I want to level my crafts?

Just pointing out another flaw in your logic. Your post isn’t constructive, it’s criticism and doesn’t offer any viable alternatives.

There is NOTHING on the AH that interests me, I’m already throwing all my money on Dyes because I don’t give a crap about anything else. I get my armors, weapons, boxes. runes and sigils from my crafting, my friends cook for me because they make so much they don’t give a kitten and even if I lacked jeweling, the 5s fee most people ask for (included myself) wouldn’t mean jack squat if I had to craft them someplace else.

Then why are you concerning yourself with what other people are doing?

The TP is filled with items that people buy for 1c over the vendor price. The sellers are selling them at 3c over the vendor price. It’s a feature of a working economy, isn’t it?

It’s called price equilibrium. If a good is selling at the floor it means it is worth that price or less. If it’s worth less it’s because there either isn’t any demand for that good and it really is worth little value or that there is too much supply although the value will eventually balance out as greater than vendor price such that profits can be realized on those sales.

This economy is working. You have only pointed out a bug that is being fixed.

And to your last point, no one cares how many upgraded gems a jeweler makes. They make just as many as they need to craft jewels / socket. The problem is GEMS dropping for nodes in HUGE amounts that even now fill my collectibles tab and are worth 2c more than the vendor price at TP. I’ve got 30+ of extra gems for every level range after being done with crafting in that range. Yeah, I’ll go buy some off the TP now. Working as intended amirite?

I don’t care either. My explanation was to point out that there will always be more gems on the market than any one single person needs. You can turn all of those lower-tier gems into higher tier gems. It wouldn’t make sense for you to go buy them off the TP because you do not need them. However, someone who does need them will buy them from you.

…cont…

If a situation in which the TP is filled with junk prime materials that anyone can afford and which completely ruins the reason for gathering materials seems normal to you, you’re wrong.

Clearly you’ve never played an MMO right after release of the original game or an expansion.

I thought you were gathering to craft materials, not sell them on the TP. Now your reasoning shines through the clouds:

You are frustrated you can’t gather and sell your mats.

Welcome to supply glut right after the release of an MMO. Wait it out, you can’t do anything about it except find another means of enjoying yourself. Why not try and max out every single gem collectible you can and then when the prices skyrocket you can sell it and sit on a small fortune?

i think he just think that you have no reason to gather since you can buy for so cheap anyway.
i mean. yeah. kind of.
but as more people pay for it, then less will be on market amd prices will go up. (unless some botters….)

oops!

Why must they dictate the price we sell at save to keep the price floor the same across the board? There is no reason to force people to sell or buy at a profit. If you don’t want to lose pennies then vendor it. Other people want to sell stuff at a loss for the convenience so let them. I don’t understand why this matters to you.

While I agree people should be able to sell at any price (even below vendor with a warning) but I don’t think buy orders should be allowed below the vendor + sales tax. New players don’t know any better and take the deals without realizing they are losing money. I’m not referring to the 1c bug.

Mat prices in game are a result of the limiting features of the crafting system. Many games you can make at least basic items from just raw materials, here you need specials to make anything useful. This causes raw materials to be much more abundant than needed and prices stay at very low rates. As the player base levels, and raw material farming subsides, prices will stabilize. Prices of Blood, Scales, etc on the other hand have made a steady climb in price (except t1 which are currently flooded). A slight reduction in special requirements (2,6,12 instead of 3,8,15) would help this. Also, at least 1 set of gear at each tier that doesn’t require specials with lesser stats might help bridging some of the gaps. Or an all new recipe that uses a large quantity of materials to make something custom. Not the mystic forge lotto that requires tier 7 rare to trade in tier 1 materials.

^ you can make wooden swords, copper swords etc without fine materials, those are useful to some people

@John Smith: I’m sorry that you think I’m a noob! (Joking, I know it’s not what you meant). I do know about the forge. I know you can upgrade fine crafting materials, but I don’t use that now and I doubt I ever will. Why on earth would I trade Skill points (a VERY limited resource, which I also need for legendaries) to upgrade them? What’s worse, I’m trading 50 (fifty!) of a lower tier item for a very low number of higher tier fine crafting materials. That is fine, of course, but the price is waaay too high! Usually, when you do something like this (trading many for few), you don’t add an extra price. About skillpoint cost: I don’t even know how many skill points I need exactly for legendary weapons, so I’m scared to waste them like this. Also, very important: right now selling 50 small claws and buying even the maximum amount of Claws you’d get the from the Forge is much, much more profitable. I hope you understand this. Also, personally, I would have never paid even silver to upgrade them. It’s simply a huge loss for the player to use this instead of using the trading post.

For gems, transmogrification isn’t as useful as you’d hope because by gathering players have the gems they need to craft the gear they need. I only used transmogrification a few times because it was good crafting XP, and when I needed some specific gems for my gear which I didn’t have (for the stat bonus I wanted). If purely interested in leveling up the craft, players don’t really need this because they’re so flooded with the gems they need to craft orange colored jewels they don’t have to rely on transmogrification (recycling old gems). I think this is one of the reasons gemstones that aren’t the highest tier are so worthless at the trading post.

Using gemstones in Mystic Forge: way too wild to be used for anything other than fun. I doubt people will buy gems off the TP for this. Getting marks is a huge loss, luckily they can be used again with gems (marks are only used at lower levels, and lower level gear is changed so fast it’s not worth the effort). I have just fed over 200 gems into the Forge of all levels except the highest tier, and ended up with almost nothing (1 useless mark, 1 gemstone and 1 highest tier gemstone). The only thing that resulted (and is worth money) is a Platinum Doubloon, but selling all the gems I have used to a vendor would have been more profitable. I just don’t see any reason to do this. Point is, people won’t buy gems off the TP for Mystic Forge transmute for the same reason they don’t buy Blue Gear off the TP and hope to get 1 green.I doubt anyone could profit after buying gems and marks off the trading post (even at the current prices) for this.

Did you mean anything else? I’m not even trying to play the TP as I did in other games, all I ask for is that I be able to sell the items I don’t need anymore for a small profit. It takes time to gather them. Getting 3 copper over the vendor price is not worth the time! Why should they be worthless? They’re not junk items that I just find lying around. I don’t even go out of my way to reach nodes, I just gather what’s close at hand. I do it to make sure I have everything I need to get my crafting up, not for selling them specifically! It just so happens that with gems I always get flooded with too many.

In short, I still see no reason why anyone should buy gemstones off the trading post.

If I miss anything else, I would be grateful if you’d mention them, I will look into it, I promise. There are many people that are disappointed with items being sold for a few copper over the vendor price and I think they would appreciate this information as well. Knowledge for the masses

About the prices for ore / wood, they do seem to be increasing a bit. Either people finally outlevel those areas or they finally found a use for them. Either the Mystic Forge Conduit (which was a great idea btw, I have crafted that myself and love it) or some other uses. I think the increase in wood cost to create planks was in the good direction too. Right now I’m looking at the higher level wood (for example Hard Wood) which is much, much cheaper than lower level planks.

@Y u mad its vydia.6324
There are a lot of things in economics that are misunderstood by many people. It’s not that Dishconnected wants to bring out the technicalities….but it is necessary to explain the mechanism in hopes that you will understand. Your aggressive attitude doesn’t help making your point across.

As John says, you’re complaining about what you expect things to work in a game who’s main selling point is that it is different. If you cannot find an item that can sell for a profit, then either try harder or quit the market. Many of us here have no problem making money form the TP. Also, you probably came with the expectation that crafted item will make you big money….but A-net had specifically made sure that this was not the case. If you don’t need an item and can’t sell for a good price, vendor it.

The global market of this game throws a lot of the habits that many players have learned from other MMO out of the window. Many are still struggling trying to learn the system…though those who have real life trading experience will find this a familiar ground.

Try harder or quit the market? Really? Go gather 20 Mushrooms and make any profit. “Try hard”. I’ve got 500 mushrooms in my bank right now and I could really use your knowledge. You can craft them into something better if you wish. Try to tell me that it’s worth the time you take to gather Mushrooms instead of doing absolutely anything else in game.

I didn’t say anything about not making money. I make loads, I have simply been using every penny it to buy gems. Gems for the Gem God.

Welcome to a player based market.

Those who complain the TP is “imbalanced” or “fees are unfair” or “people are selling below cost” are welcome to try the real life financial markets (my RL job), where the same identical stuff happens every day.

Markets are based on human mutual relations (barter), just because they are implemented inside a game does not change the human beings being behind them.

The only thing really wrong with TP is that it is always down for whatever reason when you need it.

No kidding… my day off and when i actually need the TP, it goes down for maintenance 3 times in one day…

Generally,if the TP prices are too low to cover the transaction tax,sell to a vendor.
When I see an item selling at TP for a few copper more than vendor price,I don’t even bother.I just sell to a vendor and move on.
I only sell on TP when the item price minus the TP tax will make me a significant profit.Otherwise it is not worth it.

@y u mad
Let me ask, as you are gathering mushroom, did you did any research on how much it will sell? It takes a lot of effort to gather 500 mushroom…did you evaluate if that is worth your effort at any point of time? If I know it’s not worth anything, I won’t go for that at all.

Welcome to a large player based market.

Items that are useful selling for 1c over vendor price will fix themselves over time as people stop bothering to list them and just vend them instead.

Mat prices in game are a result of the limiting features of the crafting system. Many games you can make at least basic items from just raw materials, here you need specials to make anything useful. This causes raw materials to be much more abundant than needed and prices stay at very low rates. As the player base levels, and raw material farming subsides, prices will stabilize. Prices of Blood, Scales, etc on the other hand have made a steady climb in price (except t1 which are currently flooded). A slight reduction in special requirements (2,6,12 instead of 3,8,15) would help this. Also, at least 1 set of gear at each tier that doesn’t require specials with lesser stats might help bridging some of the gaps. Or an all new recipe that uses a large quantity of materials to make something custom. Not the mystic forge lotto that requires tier 7 rare to trade in tier 1 materials.

I am under the impression you can take lower mats and convert them into higher mats, thereby creating the very effect you are looking for.

I’m also under the impression that this is not cost-effective but I do not have the math to back that assertion up right now, so take it as food for thought and not fact.

Also under the impression that you cannot purchase those sell orders that are less than vendor cost.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Try harder or quit the market? Really? Go gather 20 Mushrooms and make any profit. “Try hard”. I’ve got 500 mushrooms in my bank right now and I could really use your knowledge. You can craft them into something better if you wish. Try to tell me that it’s worth the time you take to gather Mushrooms instead of doing absolutely anything else in game.

I didn’t say anything about not making money. I make loads, I have simply been using every penny it to buy gems. Gems for the Gem God.

It’s pretty obvious that if you gathered 500 mushrooms expecting to profit off of it you are either extremely patient or incredibly naive.

I’m still unsure why this thread has progressed a serious discussion about what is wrong with the TP but I certainly hope it has given nvidia some insight as to what is right about it.

nvidia? You lost me there dish

I see no problems with the trading post being filled with stuff. Items that are used are moving in large volumes and items that not many people know of or need are moving very slow and not being bought. Everything will equalize with the game becomes more mature and the market saturates with more people crafting higher level things.

Things with no value either aren’t needed or aren’t recognized. Recipes will ensure items are always in demand if people want to do crafting. Gathering isn’t really a fast way of making money and its just part of the game. If you want to make money by farming, go kill enemies that drop crafting materials like blood vials, You can make a couple g in an hour doing that.

The problem is that sellers should not be expected to sell things at a loss compared to vender price for stuff that others want to buy. And this is fixed by setting the floor price for listings to 1c over vender price + the 15% TP fee. That way anything no matter how small the demand will net at least 1c profit. And trash will remain trash. The trash will eventually get sold to the vender as it should be since it will have no demand. And unless people are silly and don’t remove the trash listings to sell to vender so they only lose the 5% listing fee, the trash will eventually clear off the TP leaving mainly stuff that others actually want to buy. Items that have a larger supply than demand will potentially hit the floor price as would be expected but at least the floor won’t make selling to the vender better than supplying the items to the demand. While items that have a demand equal to or greater than supply will continue to work correctly as they most likely are not at the current flawed floor price.

I’m assuming the motivation of wanting the floor price to be at 15% is so that people can make more profit selling trash in TP. In that context, if things are not selling at vendor1, what makes you think it will sell at vendor 15%? If it is being sold at vendor15%, that reduces the demand of it as compared to at vendor +1c. The only reason the price is vendor +1c is because that was the floor. Actual demand of the item is much lower than the vendor price.

They are hoping that if an item is at or below vendor price people will, you know, vendor the item. This reduces the supply of the item since people aren’t putting it in to the market and hopefully helps the price go up.

This isn’t happening as gold corporations are currently dumping on the market to try to push players out so that people are forced to buy from the gold companies instead.

@Rukh
Correct…what they fail to realize is that demand will also drop when the price is being pushed up, and when it can be sold above vendor price, supply will flow back in. They see how the price will raise from the reduced supply, and stop there. They didn’t think how price will move after that.

I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about the gold corporation thing.

Gold selling sites that have tons of people to farm for dirt prices who can still make a irl profit even though real characters have no incentive to compete in such a deflated market.

Jia Shen.4217:

The problem is that sellers should not be expected to sell things at a loss compared to vender price for stuff that others want to buy.

Who expects this? You never have to sell at a loss compared to vendor because you can always vendor it. It does not have to be sold on the TP. There is no requirement for this anywhere.

And this is fixed by setting the floor price for listings to 1c over vender price + the 15% TP fee. That way anything no matter how small the demand will net at least 1c profit.

What is your proposal for decreasing the money supply somewhere else to stem the inflation this will inevitably cause? Keep in mind all that you have done is moved the floor price up, caused a distortion in the value of the entire market. Because of this what will happen initially… is that the spread between items will GUARANTEE profit until it balances out. Then what will happen is the prices of all goods will increase due to everyone having more gold.

Net result – you’ll make more copper and spend more copper on everything else. Worth it?

And trash will remain trash. The trash will eventually get sold to the vender as it should be since it will have no demand.

That could be done now…

And unless people are silly and don’t remove the trash listings to sell to vender so they only lose the 5% listing fee, the trash will eventually clear off the TP leaving mainly stuff that others actually want to buy.

The trash listings are… always going to be there… want to know how something is “trash”? Look at what it is. If it is not a crafting material and there’s a significant backlog looking like this:

25c 2500383 listings
26c 1839372 listings
27c 982383 listings

… then there is clearly too much supply of it and it’s “trash” [overvalued].

Items that have a larger supply than demand will potentially hit the floor price as would be expected but at least the floor won’t make selling to the vender better than supplying the items to the demand.

And now you will cause other goods to increase in price to compensate. I doubt you want that.

While items that have a demand equal to or greater than supply will continue to work correctly as they most likely are not at the current flawed floor price.

They will work the same with or without your input because … you aren’t changing the demand for those. As a matter of fact, the price of those goods will increase.

Rukh.9287:

They are hoping that if an item is at or below vendor price people will, you know, vendor the item. This reduces the supply of the item since people aren’t putting it in to the market and hopefully helps the price go up.

Then all that needs to be done is to make it clearly obvious that they are selling at a loss putting it on the TP, which can be done adding the calculation fields to the TP itself.
It will still happen but then people will vendor “trash”, destroy it at a faster rate and then achieve what you wish.

This isn’t happening as gold corporations are currently dumping on the market to try to push players out so that people are forced to buy from the gold companies instead.

Interesting theory but there is no reason to take this seriously.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

For gems, transmogrification isn’t as useful as you’d hope because by gathering players have the gems they need to craft the gear they need. I only used transmogrification a few times because it was good crafting XP, and when I needed some specific gems for my gear which I didn’t have (for the stat bonus I wanted). If purely interested in leveling up the craft, players don’t really need this because they’re so flooded with the gems they need to craft orange colored jewels they don’t have to rely on transmogrification (recycling old gems). I think this is one of the reasons gemstones that aren’t the highest tier are so worthless at the trading post.

While I kept reading your posts, there was something going on that I couldn’t figure out what it was. This part made me realize what it was. You are just assuming that every single other player who does actually gather as they play the game and work on their crafts would have accumulated the same over supply of crafting mats that you do.

Please keep in mind you’re just making an assumption. Maybe you have more time to play the game, and don’t really do other things like WvW and only roam/explore/gather. So, maybe the amounts of stuff you’re collecting is higher. I’m a jeweler as well, but I do a lot of things in game. I try to stop as often as I can for gathering, but sometimes I’m in the middle of an event and can’t. Especially when it’s an escort leading up to something special like the Shatterer.

I’m still leveling my jeweler craft. I’m only like around 205. I keep running out of gold ore. I find tons of Iron Ore, but not so much gold ore. Of course, I might not be in the right zones to find it, but the zones i’m in atm where I do find it in lesser supply. The gold items i make are barely meeting the level of gear I need. Kind of feels like what i’m making in that is behind what I can use.

SO…. I have used the TP to supplement my supply of gold ore when I run out. However, the prices of gold ore stacks HAS been going up. I had to stop buying. And, I have transmogrified a lot of my gems after I unlocked the filigree item. Then, I started discovering all the filigrees + gem types.

I’m just saying that your experiences aren’t always everyone’s experiences. The way you seem to generalize and say this is how everything is… Feels exceptionally condescending. :/ so since not everyone has done everything just the way you do. then obviously, the rest of us are super lazy.

I use the TP lots. When I see orders buying things at only 1c or 2c; i don’t sell to those people. I just create my own selling order at what I wanna sell it at.

Dishconnected.8360:

…cont…

If a situation in which the TP is filled with junk prime materials that anyone can afford and which completely ruins the reason for gathering materials seems normal to you, you’re wrong.

Clearly you’ve never played an MMO right after release of the original game or an expansion.

I thought you were gathering to craft materials, not sell them on the TP. Now your reasoning shines through the clouds:

You are frustrated you can’t gather and sell your mats.

Welcome to supply glut right after the release of an MMO. Wait it out, you can’t do anything about it except find another means of enjoying yourself. Why not try and max out every single gem collectible you can and then when the prices skyrocket you can sell it and sit on a small fortune?

This is a great point. We all have to keep in mind in regards to the economy that with the game being so new; things still need to settle. Server populations haven’t even completely settled yet. I’m sure six months from now; things will seem much different. We may have some players that take a break and aren’t around as much; so there could be less number of people listing certain things. Also, with all the new players having had more higher level characters by then, various mats will take on newer values. It might even get to a point where after a year, the prices of low level mats are actually higher as there are more abundances of higher level mats because the average player is gathering from those areas since they’ve done everything they can in the lower level zones. ((I apologize if I didn’t find the right places to break up that last one))

Or the opposite could hold true, where as time goes by people develop more efficient farming/harvesting strategies resulting in even more oversupply. That’s another, opposite end of the spectrum I’ve seen in games where something is initially rare, but then people become more skilled at acquiring such things, making the price even lower.

As far as crafting materials go, especially for the lower-end materials, I have in the course of normal playing gotten MUCH more than enough of the base materials to increase two crafting disciplines with a ton of excess to sell. As of right now, there is absolutely no market for the vast majority of player-made goods except level 80 rares/exotics, and since each player is gathering much more than the amount of, say, Iron, than they need to level, the excess floods the market, where it sits, piling up, because there is zero demand for it. Occasionally I’ll buy up a few dozen iron on my main to make armor for an alt, but that’s pretty much the extent of my Iron use once I’ve leveled my crafting past that point.

You can’t just use the cop-out of “Oh, he’s just mad because he wants to sell crafting materials instead of craft,” when there is so much excess. I know for every discipline on every character I’ve leveled that the limiting reagent, if you will, was always the “fine” materials like scales or totems, which are performing quite nicely on the market. I had enough leftover copper/wood/iron/platinum to choke a horse, or in this case a market.

If you want to make money just custom bid for less than the going rate, and sell back at the going rate. I increase my networth by 20% everyday with a single rotation of this, that I can often do while off adventuring.

That post of 100k copper by 1 person.. will be a reality pretty soon.